Posts Tagged Max Roach

Ulysses Owens Jr. Songs of Freedom Resilience Music Alliance LLC Drummer Ulysses Owens Jr. has two previous albums as a leader and is known for his work with Kurt Elling, Wynton Marsalis and Christian McBride among others. But for Songs of Freedom it’s his work with Elling that provides an obvious link – for this audacious project […]

I was hooked on Modern Drummer magazine as a teen. And I always liked reading the record reviews at the back of the Modern Drummer, they focused on drums and ‘drum’ albums or at least highlighted the drums and drumming on pop and rock records when they reviewed them. They might write-up a pop album because of […]

You know the drill by now – here’s the catch-all blurb/explanation I’ve created for these sorts of lists We all know that lists are subjective – that is the point of them. So I’ve decided to do a series of top 10 albums across genres. They’ll appear sporadically. And rather than call them “Top 10” I […]

Welcome to episode 101 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and Le Petite Chocolat. Here’s a chat with legendary Wellington drummer Ant Donaldson. I met Ant a few years back – having been an admirer of his playing across so many bands. The Razorblade, The Mantarays, The Six Volts/Front Lawn, The Labcoats, The […]

Drum Solos! – wait, come back! You don’t often hear people crying out for more drum solos, or any drum solos. Even a lot of drummers hate drum solos. But sometimes you see and hear something special. And sometimes the drum solo – or an extended break – is, I dunno, “musical”, and exciting. Well, […]

Tony Allen A Tribute To Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers (ep) Blue Note Records Originally released as a 10” EP – two tracks per side – this tribute to Art Blakey by Tony Allen is full of magic; for a start it welcomes Allen to Blue Note and has him playing his version of […]

Kenny Clare & Ronnie Stephenson, Drum Spectacular (1967) I can’t say I knew much of anything about Kenny Clare or Ronnie Stephenson – but I have a bit of a drum-battle albums festish; the Rich and Roach ones, and others…and now I guess I satisfy that occasional itch, mostly, through YouTube clips rather than sitting […]

I saw Faith No More three times in Wellington, three different venues, three different line-ups of the band (different guitarist each time) between 1993 and 1998 and all three gigs were great. This band never let me down. But they often tell you the first time is sweetest, you certainly never forget your first time. […]

Terri Lyne Carrington Money Jungle: Provocative in Blue Concord Jazz It’s best not to look too hard at how this version of Money Jungle (a brand new album that is part-tribute, part-extrapolation, part-palinode) measures up (or doesn’t) to the legendary recording by Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach. The point, here, is that with […]

Max Roach w/ The J.C. White Singers, Lift Every Voice And Sing (1971) I was happy to find this album on vinyl – I bought it recently. But I used to have it on CD and it’s probably still around somewhere. Listening to it (the new LP) made me think back to one of the […]